Holiday cookies to make, bake, and decorate

The essence of winter is the aroma of cookies baking fragrantly in the oven. Whether they are for gifts, swapping with friends or school bake sales, December offers the annual ritual of cookie sheets and royal icing, parchment paper and packaging.

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LOUIE FAVORITE / lfavorite@ajc.com

Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookie Bark make fine ornaments.

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LOUIS FAVORITE / lfavorite@ajc.com

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Christmas cookies
• Baker's Dozen: 13 Christmas cookie recipes chosen by the AJC food writers.

• Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookie Bark
• Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Stained Glass Cookies
• Italian Polenta Cookies
• Classic Gingerbread Cookies
• Glittery Sandwich Cookies
• Cranberry Pistachio Icebox Cookies
• Finnish Ribbon Cookies

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Cookie baking can require a fair bit of rule-following. “My best advice if you are new to baking is follow the recipe to a T,” says Jean-Luc Verbist, pastry chef at Henri’s Bakery.

Still, whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or just that nip in the air that invokes the cookie muse, there are many ways to jazz up traditional doughs.

Simply adding a quarter cup of cocoa, for example, to a sugar cookie, yields a reliable chocolate alternative, while crushed hard candy in a cutout turns the old holiday standby into a stained glass cookie.

Alon Balshan, owner of Alon’s Bakery, recommends some Middle Eastern-inspired tweaks to refrigerated sugar cookie dough. “Add spices, cocoa and/or nuts to these doughs. Roll them into a 1-inch log, refrigerate, then cut into disks and bake at [375] degrees for about 10 minutes,” he says.

From the glittering lemon sandwich cookies to a simple sugar cookie topped with Verbist’s easy glaze, adding variations to holiday cookie-cutter basics doesn’t have to be rocket science. Here are some tips from Balshan and Verbist.

Better with butter: Henri’s Verbist says to choose butter over shortening when possible.

Raw ingredients: Don’t over mix dough. If you use a mixer, blend the flour on the first speed or do it by hand. Make sure ingredients are cold, and don’t hold the cookie dough in your hands too long.

Make cold: When baking chocolate chunk type cookies, make sure to keep them in the refrigerator before putting going into the oven. If left out, they will spread out and bake too flat and even rather than crusty at the edges and soft in the center.

Bake hot: Make sure oven is at the right temperature. Use an oven thermometer because many ranges do not register the proper temperature.

Use the right rack: Make sure to check the bottom of the cookie as well as the top as it bakes. If the bottom is too dark, raise the oven rack.

Use as ornaments To string cookies, like the Classic Gingerbread Cookies, use the back of a bamboo skewer to place a 1/8-inch hole into the cookie before it goes into the oven. (For batters that spread, use the skewer to make the hole as soon as cookies come out of the oven.) Select a 3/8-inch ribbon to thread through the hole after cookies have cooled. Hang from doors, windows or your Christmas tree

Kids stuff: Try a simple sugar cookie recipe, or buy refrigerated cookie dough, sold at grocery stores as well as at Alon’s, and let the kids be in charge of decorating with colored icings and sugars, sprinkles, M&Ms, gum drops, or colorful morsels.

Easier icing: Try using a small plastic squeeze bottle, like a mini ketchup dispenser, for easily icing cookies. You may need to cut a small slit up the side to accommodate thicker icing.

Shipping cookies

• When packing cookies to ship, sturdy sweets, such as sugar cookies or biscotti are best.Layer pieces of wax or parchment paper between baked goods.

• Give cookies stacked in a large mug wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbon or in Chinese take-out boxes. Tape the lid of the container closed and wrap it in a layer of bubble wrap or crumpled newspaper.

Place the container in a sturdy corrugated cardboard box and use newspaper or plastic grocery bags to cushion the container tightly in place.

• According to FedEx, homemade treats can be shipped as late as Dec. 23 for overnight delivery in time for Christmas.

• www.williams-sonoma.com sells monogrammed cookie gift boxes. $29 for a set of six. Red polka-dotted holiday wax tissue is also available ($12). www.marthastewartcrafts.com also sells numerous cookie boxes and other food gift packaging.

Jean-luc Verbist’s sugar cookie glaze:

Verbist says this glaze is best on sugar cookies (without the added sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon) or on gingerbread.

Bring half a cup of whole milk and one ounce of butter to a boil. Remove from stove and add one pound plus four ounces of powdered sugar. Whisk until smooth. The longer the glaze cools, the stiffer it becomes.

Optional additions include lemon, almond or vanilla extracts or food colorings)

Place sugar cookies on a rack and pour the glaze over. To use in a piping bag, add more sugar until it reaches a pipeable consistency.